Vacaville works to meet housing requirements

Reluctantly, the city of Vacaville is moving forward with plans to meet a state requirement for the number of housing units within its borders.

California requires all regions to provide their fair share of the state's affordable housing need. Vacaville, along with all other cities in Solano County, falls under the jurisdiction of the Association of Bay Area Governments.

The next housing cycle is from 2014 to 2022, so the city is starting now to revise its housing element in its general plan.

On Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to allow the City and County Coordinating Council to submit the draft methodology to ABAG for review and to make minor reallocations to the Regional Housing Needs Allocation.

The draft allocation of housing units presented to the council showed that Solano County as a whole needs to designate land for 6,977 units, ranging from very-low income households to above-moderate income households.

For now, Fairfield is required to accommodate for 3,150 units, while Dixon is required to accommodate for 197.

Vacaville will be responsible for the accommodation of 1,084 units.

"It's a very reasonable number," said Maureen Carson, Vacaville's community development director. "It's probably about half of what's currently in our housing element. We have a very adequate number of land to accommodate those housing units."

"I'm confident we'll prepare a housing element that will get state certification in 2014," she continued.

There is a challenge, she said.

In the past, the city relied on redevelopment funds to help with housing.

"That's the challenge, what new opportunities are going to be available through the state to build affordable housing within the city," she said.

Councilman Curtis Hunt isn't thrilled about a regional entity having a say in city planning.

"I have issues with this. I've never appreciated RHNA. I've never appreciated ABAG and the formulas have always been unfairly distributed."

"Without redevelopment it becomes an unfunded mandate," he continued. "... The regional planning is really reducing the city's ability to plan and I think it's going to get worse before it gets better."

Carson explained that the city isn't responsible to see that the housing units are built, but rather have the lands zoned for the private market to build them.

"The goal is to get a certified housing element to be good in the eyes of the state and be eligible for housing money," she said. "I feel confident with these numbers that we can do that."